Parking Problem, Adaptive Solution

Singapore’s Paul Barter, writing here in his ‘Reinventing Parking’ blog, discusses the problem with private parking kept for a single store. A drug store has a few spaces, I go to the drug store and buy something, then walk down the street to another, and then a third. The druggist is upset because I’m taking his parking space while shopping at others.

Paul suggests that parking districts be set up so that all the small lots in a business district can be pulled together and run as one. Free market pricing would be used. And all merchants would be happy with the result.

Great idea, but I think it could be don’t without government intervention. What if a private operator proposed the solution to the merchants. The operator would take care of the paperwork, collect the money, and distribute the profits. The “downtown merchants” could validate if they liked, or share in the rewards. Parkers could park anywhere but would, by means of a rate structure, not overstay the limits set by the merchants.